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TrueCar.com Examines Gender Differences in Vehicle Registrations

Friday, 11 June 2010 09:13Written by TrueCar

TrueCar.com, the authoritative voice in new car price and industry trend information, has released its second in a series of automotive industry demographic studies, this time turning its data lens on gender differences in auto registrations.

TrueCar’s study was based on over 13 million actual vehicle registrations, covering the last two years. Additionally, TrueCar.com was able to identify current discount percentages for each of these makes and models.

In looking at the gender of the name on the registration alone, and not driver or decision maker, the data shows that more men than women – at a rate of 64% to 36% – register vehicles in the U.S., even though females make up 51% of the U.S. population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Some of the key findings of the TrueCar.com study include:

The brand with the highest percentage of female registrations was Kia (45.8%), followed by Suzuki (44.2%) and Mini (43.9%). There were 10 total makes with female ratio of over 42%, including Subaru, Hyundai and Volvo, which are all brands known for safety and/or value.

The highest percentage of male registrations included primarily exotics and truck heavy brands. There were six brands at 10% or less for female registration, including Bugatti (0%), Ferrari (5.6%), Lamborghini (6.5%), Tesla (9.8%), Aston Martin (9.9%) and Lotus (10%). Representing the low end of female registered brands were several makes best known for trucks, including GMC, Dodge and Hummer.

TrueCar also examined the most current market prices and listed discounts for all of the brands and specific models that were tracked. Below are all brands with their female registration ratios and their current discount percentages:

Make

% Female Owners

Discount

KIA

45.8%

8.3%

SUZUKI

44.2%

9.5%

MINI

43.9%

3.1%

SUBARU

43.2%

4.0%

NISSAN

43.1%

9.6%

HYUNDAI

43.0%

8.3%

HONDA

42.8%

7.8%

VOLVO

42.4%

8.2%

LEXUS

42.3%

7.2%

MITSUBISHI

41.5%

10.1%

MERCURY

41.4%

9.9%

MAZDA

40.9%

6.8%

VOLKSWAGEN

40.2%

5.1%

TOYOTA

39.6%

9.6%

SAAB

38.5%

12.9%

ACURA

37.8%

5.2%

MERCEDES-BENZ

36.9%

7.3%

CHRYSLER

36.8%

13.7%

JEEP

35.9%

11.5%

BUICK

34.9%

6.3%

LINCOLN

34.7%

10.4%

BMW

34.4%

9.7%

INFINITI

32.9%

8.0%

CADILLAC

32.7%

6.7%

AUDI

32.0%

4.3%

JAGUAR

30.2%

9.5%

LAND ROVER

30.1%

4.2%

FORD

29.8%

12.7%

CHEVROLET

28.7%

11.3%

DODGE

27.0%

8.8%

GMC

21.8%

9.0%

PORSCHE

18.4%

4.4%

.

Below are the full stats on the nine models that topped the 50% or more female registration ratio and their current market discounts:

Make

Model

Trim

% of Female Registrations

MSRP

Invoice

Average Paid

Customer Cash

Net Price

% Discount off MSRP

VOLKSWAGEN

NEW BEETLE

2dr Coupe Auto

56.1%

$20,540

$19,596

$19,925

$0

$ 19,925

-3.0%

NISSAN

ROGUE

FWD 4dr S

53.5%

$21,260

$20,307

$20,048

$1,750

$ 18,298

-13.9%

HYUNDAI

TUCSON

FWD 4dr I4 Auto GLS

53.0%

$20,790

$20,041

$20,281

$0

$ 20,281

-2.4%

VOLKSWAGEN

EOS

2dr Conv DSG Komfort SULEV

53.0%

$34,240

$32,001

$32,497

$0

$ 32,497

-5.1%

VOLVO

S40

4dr Sedan Man FWD

51.9%

$27,050

$25,478

$23,988

$0

$ 23,988

-11.3%

HONDA

CR-V

2WD 5dr LX

51.3%

$22,325

$20,836

$21,342

$0

$ 21,342

-4.4%

KIA

SPORTAGE

2WD 4dr V6 Auto LX

50.5%

$21,690

$20,985

$21,731

$2,000

$ 19,731

-9.0%

TOYOTA

RAV4

FWD 4dr 4-cyl 4-Spd AT Sport

50.4%

$24,175

$22,654

$23,153

$0

$ 23,153

-4.2%

NISSAN

SENTRA

4dr Sedan I4 CVT 2.0 S

50.1%

$17,900

$16,749

$16,992

$2,000

$ 14,992

-16.2%

.

This piece of demographic data is only a small snapshot of the full range of data TrueCar.com will be reporting on in the coming months, with hopes of giving consumers and the manufacturers a better idea of what their purchasing trends look like. Results of this study and others, as well as the TrueTrends™ by TrueCar Report and other valuable data and information, can be found at www.truecar.com.

Comments

Roger Conant14-06-2010, 11:43

I gotta say that I am mystified by these figures. Every piece on women car buyers quote in the high 40% at the least. And thats been true for a long time. And I'm not talking about a few "women" advocate resources. Is there something inherent in the registration process that would skew these figures to high male?

The numbers you are speaking of are based on opinion polls and anecdotal conversation. There have been a number of studies that have said up to 80% of women make or influence the decisions. We don't dispute any of that. We are simply saying, when it comes down to buying, there are more cars registered to men than women...and the cars that women do register most are listed in this post.

How does it square with ownership vs. registration? The only reason I ask is b/c my husband and I have a car - his car - that has both of us on the title. Its registered under my name because it was cheaper when we got the plates b/c my birthday had already passed.

With the difference in percentage of registrations vs. percentage of drivers, i would assume that there are a lot of couples where both cars are registered under the guys name for some reason?

In a situation like yours, we would count both names on the title, which would obviously balance the number. And in a situation where we were looking at a finite set and making a guess based on that, it would have some affect. But TrueCar, as it does with our price model - based on actual total transactions and not averages - bases the stats solely on all of the data. We used the TOTAL number of women with names on registrations and the TOTAL number of men with names on registrations.

When I saw your percentages for VW Beetles I knew they were too low, suggesting that maybe men are shopping for cars for or with women then registering them in their own name. I decided to do my own informal but random survey to see who is driving VW Beetles. I looked to see the gender of every Beetle driver I could identify and found that out of 100, 72 were driven by women.

I think that your numbers may reflect a brand's relative balance of females, but not the absolute numbers. I think there are behavioral factors at work in car buying that effect the true relationship.